June 2009 saw two teams of fly fishers travel from the Isle of Man to the Scottish Isle of Islay to take part in the Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships. A total of 12 teams from all over the Commonwealth took part with Australia, Canada, South Africa, the home Nations of Wales, Scotland and England and Scotland ladies all represented.

The Isle of Man teams consisted of:-

IOM 1, Geoff Thomas (Capt), Andy Bertie, Brian Craig, Mick Watterson and Graham Norman

IOM 2, Chris Sharples (Capt), Zak Hoosen, Orry Watterson, Cassim Rasool and Dave Howe.

Both Teams caught good numbers of fish through practice sessions in some beautiful scenery and surroundings. Traditional wets and dries caught well, along with buzzers and mini lures. All the practice sessions took place away from the competition waters, with the venues for practice chosen to emulate the comp venues as closely as possible.

Some long hikes had to be undertaken to reach some of the venues, but when you arrived on the Loch the feeling of isolation and the natural beauty was literally breath taking. With a fair breeze on all but two of the days, the promised midges thankfully were in short supply. However on the days with very little breeze you were eaten alive if you did not have the appropriate netting and repellent.

The Après fishing was just as good, with a large selection of local distilled whisky to be sampled. Some of team members sampled more than others!!!

On the day before the competition began an opening parade was held through the streets of Bowmore down to the distillery where a welcome Barbecue had been arranged. All of the children from the local school took part, each one dressing up in topical theme of fish, fisherman, boats and Midgees. A special thanks to all the kids, they managed to stick with it even in the pouring rain.

So to the competition, there were five sessions to fish on four different venues. They were Loch Kinnabus, Loch Ballygrant, Loch Finlaggan and Loch Gorm (two sessions). Each angler fished against one member from each of the other teams, receiving one point for a session win down to twelve points for last or a blank.

Full results from all the sessions can be found at

www.commonwealthflyfishingscotland.com/2009results.htm

Congratulations to Scotland Men who won the competition for the 3^rd time running, also congratulations to Phil Dixon of England who won the individual prize winning all of his sessions.

Well done to both Manx teams who performed well to finish 8^th and 10^th respectively.

Additional congratulations goes to Zak Hoosen who finished top Manx rod at a very respectable 20^th position. Zak did exceptionally well and managed to catch fish in all sessions to avoid the dreaded blank!!!

A big thank you must also go to Iain Earle and all his team who made the competition so enjoyable. Additional thanks to all the controllers who gave up their own time to measure the fish.

Next Commonwealth Championship will be held in Wales in 2010, with Tasmania the venue in 2012

Additional photos of the trip can be found in our gallery section.

Geoff